


Need to Know

by antigrav_vector



Series: CapIM bingo fills - 2016 [12]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Cap_Ironman Bingo, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:24:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Shellhead has gotten home safely, Tony spends some time perfecting Extremis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need to Know

**Author's Note:**

> A short little fill for the 'enhancement' square on my Stony bingo card.
> 
> Unbeta'ed, so forgive any mistakes.

"Sir," JARVIS sounded like he was biting back a sigh, "I must remind you that the Captain will not be pleased to find out that you have hidden this project from him."

"Relax, J," Tony replied, tapping a few of the custom shortcut keys on his interface as he spoke. Code that Shellhead had given him before they'd gotten him home scrolled past on the holographic screen. Tony smiled, his face lit blue by the glow of the hologram. "I'll tell him when it's ready, not before."

"Sir," the AI tried again, "Captain Rogers will--"

"JARVIS," Tony broke in, his voice telegraphing his irritation, "just run the damn sim. I'd like to finish the bug-testing sometime this year. Shellhead didn't have time to perfect this before he injected it. We do."

"Very well, sir."

More code and projections flickered in and out of view as they were completed, and then glanced at and dismissed by Tony. The silence held for about ten minutes. "There!" Tony pointed to a blip in the projected baseline activity of the wifi module, "what's that?"

JARVIS' attention shifted and focused. "I believe it is a memory leak," he replied after about thirty seconds. "Simulations show heightened processing load and allocated memory, but the code for the corresponding deallocation appears to be missing or nonfunctional."

"Show me," Tony demanded.

The scrolling code stopped, and JARVIS highlighted a segment that corresponded to the blip. "Here, sir."

Examining it, Tony considered the code and its purpose. It _looked_ like the commands were meant to direct Extremis to 'save' whatever was in on-board memory to his actual wetware memory -- something that couldn't be tested _ex vivo_ \-- leading to the accumulation of data in on-board memory without Extremis being able to actually save it anywhere.

"Looks like a false alarm to me, J," he said. "That should disappear once it's actually in final testing, _in vivo_. Shellhead never said anything about memory leaks when he was talking about his enhancements."

"A point well made, sir. However, he did mention an incident wherein he wiped his own memories and was forced to use an extremely out of date backup. Might I suggest learning from his error, and scheduling nightly incremental backups, if you go through with this?"

Tony shrugged carelessly. "Sure, why not, add it in, set it to run while I'm asleep. Throw in our proprietary antivirus suite, while you're at it. I can't believe he didn't have one. You manage to pinpoint where that base level encryption version conflict was coming from?"

"Not as yet, sir," JARVIS sounded less irritated about the whole thing, now.

Maybe, just maybe, Tony mused to himself, he would be able to get this working before the team's next big call-out. That kind of enhancement to one of their members was sure to be a big advantage in the field.

Well, once it had been fully debugged and he'd learned how to use it properly.

For now, though, this was strictly need-to-know, and Steve didn't. He'd tell Steve once he'd worked out the kinks. Tony made a face, he knew better than to try to upgrade himself without at least telling his lover. He'd learned from his breakup with Pepper, thanks.

Just as he'd settled in to dig down into the code himself, the workshop door opened. Tony bit back a groan; there was only one person besides Pepper who currently had that level of access. Of all the moments Steve could have picked.

Shoving the emotion away, he turned and caught Steve's eyes, trying to project curiousity rather than annoyance. "You wanted something?"

"Dinner's ordered, and will be here in fifteen," Steve replied, not answering the question directly.

Refusing the implied request would only draw all of Steve's attention, though. And that was something he wasn't prepared to deal with yet. Another couple of days... Shaking the thoughts off, Tony nodded slowly. "I could eat."

"Great." Steve wrapped an arm around his shoulders and steered him out of the workshop. "And maybe I'll convince you to tell me what you're working on so intently."

Tony laughed. "You're welcome to try," he said with a suggestive wink at his lover.

"Oh," Steve's expression was _promising_. "Is that a challenge?"


End file.
